I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the information of cigarette packages and particularly to the transfer of completed cigarettes to packaging apparatus with inspection and rejection of defective cigarettes during the transfer procedure. More specifically, this invention is directed to apparatus for delivering completed cigarettes to a packaging station, the apparatus detecting and ejecting defective cigarettes. Accordingly, the general objects of the present invention are to provide novel and improved methods and apparatus of such character.
II. Description of the Prior Art
Apparatii for feeding unpackaged cigarettes to a packaging station of a cigarette packaging machine are known in the art. An exemplary prior art cigarette feed apparatus is disclosed in published European application No. 0,100,537. This exemplary prior art cigarette feed apparatus has a delivery shaft which is subdivided into individual guide channels by partitions. A sensor for checking cigarette qualify is associated with each guide channel. A transfer roller, provided with a pair of oppositely disposed cigarette receiving troughs or grooves in its periphery, is positioned in registration with the exit end of each guide channel. The cigarettes move along the guide channels under the influence of gravity and are subsequently individually transferred by the rollers to further guide or delivery channels. An ejector, which may be in the form of an air blast, is positioned to remove defective cigarettes from each roller during the rotation thereof, i.e. the defective cigarettes will be blown out of the receiving troughs in the rollers and thus will not reach the further guide channels through which the cigarettes are delivered to the packaging station.
Continuing to discuss exemplary prior art apparatus such as disclosed in the above-referenced European application, the layers of cigarettes which will define a cigarette block to wrapped are formed at the end of the further guide channels. There must, accordingly, always be sufficient cigarettes in the lower portions of the further guide channels to form a complete layer. Since defective cigarettes occur variably in the guide channels, it is necessary to exercise control over the transfer rollers individually to ensure that all of the further guide channels will be populated with a sufficient number of acceptable cigarettes. This requires relatively sophisticated control hardware and results in comparatively complex and expensive apparatus. This control hardware includes filling-level indicators for sensing the presence of an adequate supply of cigarettes in the further guide channels and for controlling the rotational speed of the transfer rollers associated with each guide channel. Even with such comparatively complex apparatus, operational problems have been known to occur when several defective cigarettes occur in succession in a given guide channel.